Columbus Short
Columbus Short
Columbus Keith Short, Jr. is an American choreographer, actor, and singer. He choreographed Britney Spears's Onyx Hotel Tour and worked with Brian Friedman. He is best known for his roles in the films Stomp the Yard, Cadillac Records, Armored, and The Losers. He previously starred as a series regular in the ABC drama Scandal, as Harrison Wright. On April 26, 2014, it was announced that Short would leave Scandal after three seasons with the show...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth19 September 1982
CityKansas City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
I try to carve my own way so the actors who come after me will say, "I want to do it like Columbus did it."
As we speak, that is what we are doing. Projects that come to you are not written for you. We have to take a lesson from Will Smith, who develops projects he can shine in. We're trying to develop things from the ground up.
Everybody who knows me is like, 'Dude, you've got to chill out.' I can't not work, given where I want to be.
I think showing heroes as fallible helps us and reminds us that we are ourselves fallible and no man is perfect but we can still achieve great things.
I want to play Martin Luther King. That is absolutely a role and a character who is important to the landscape of the world that I really want to play.
[Show] business is tough. You never know who or what's real. It's tough when you get in this business, if you have no grounded foundation other than Hollywood, because this business isn't real. We're getting paid to do what we love, but it isn't real.
I can say with full sincerity that I am happy. I'm happy because I'm doing what I love and I'm not selling out. And I can sleep at night because I'm at peace with it.
I was struggling with drugs, I had a lot on my plate, and you know, I was using unhealthy ways to kind of self-medicate and deal with a lot of heavy duty stuff in my life.
The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity.
I don't want to do action that doesn't mean anything. Everything I do I want to have character development and three-dimensional characters, fallible humans, and this is definitely one of them.
I don't know if it was a defining moment. I knew it as soon as I could comprehend the possibility of having a career. I knew very young I wanted to be a movie star. As much as I grew into love of the craft. As soon as I could speak I was auditioning and going to classes every day. It was my life.
Every movie I work with the costume designer to see what feels like the character, not what Columbus would wear but what is right for the character. Outside of the armored truck standard issue security guard uniform, this guy is trying to make ends meet. He might have one pair of jeans, the same boot, maybe changes his shirt but he doesn't have a walk-in closet full of things, so I wanted something comfortable that felt like the character.
I take bits and pieces from every director. I'd say Sylvain [White] and Nimrod [Antal]. They were more about teaching me lens sizes and depth of field and how to move the camera and lighting. I do want to direct and I didn't go to film school, so having a director that are very much hands on that way and looking to let me learn, that is a key factor.
You stay with the foundation and then you just try different things because you don't know how the director will cut it and you want to give him, what will work, and you want to give him some options, give yourself some options, discover some things when you start to play. That's what we do; we get paid to play.